§ Mr. BoswellI beg to move amendment No. 69, in page 34, line 27, at end insert—
'Disqualification by Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales6. A member of the Commission is disqualified from being—I am a little disappointed—indeed, I am mortified—that, despite the efforts of some of my hon. Friends to wake up the House a few moments ago, no Ministers from the Scottish Office or the Welsh Office are present for a debate about important business that bears on Scotland and Wales. I am relatively inexperienced in the consideration of difficult constitutional matters. My sole qualifications are that I have a Scottish name and a Welsh wife. I am distressed at having to do without the assistance of Ministers from those Departments.
- (a) a member of the Scottish Parliament, or
- (b) a member of the National Assembly for Wales.'.
The amendment is consensual, so the Ministers need not have stayed away. Membership of bodies financed and serviced by the Crown may give rise to disqualification. Someone who joins a quango financed by the Government or takes up a job as a salaried civil 241 servant is disqualified from membership of this House. That also applies to membership of the Northern Ireland assembly, which is a dead letter at the moment. Those two cases are provided for in schedule 1, but there is no such disqualification for the Scottish Parliament or the National Assembly for Wales.
I have made inquiries about that. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) is a constitutional specialist who keeps an eye on such proceedings, on which I was temporarily unsighted. He shared my view that the issue should be sorted out in the Bill.
I then sought correspondence with the Minister's Department. We had a useful exchange; he replied promptly in order to inform consideration on Report. He replied to the effect that there was no such automatic disqualification, but that it could be extended under the provisions of the Scotland Bill and the Government of Wales Bill in due course by Order in Council. I am sure that that is the Government's intention.
We, as ever, are anxious to help the Government on their way, and the amendment would simply provide at this point, cleanly and neatly in this Bill, a disqualification from the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales of persons who are—or happen to be at the time—members of the Low Pay Commission. It is no more and no less than that, and I hope that, at this late stage, the Government, who have shown such relative reluctance to consider and adopt our amendments, might break their duck.
§ Mr. Ian McCartneyI am afraid that I cannot help the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell)—not even at this early hour. Amendment No. 69 attempts to make much ado about nothing. I have written to the hon. Gentleman about the matter, which he raised in Committee. I thank him for writing to me because it gave me an opportunity to confirm what I said.
The amendment proposes that the Bill should specify now that members of the Low Pay Commission should be disqualified from being Members of the Scottish Parliament or Members of the National Assembly for Wales. My reaction to this is: all in good time; there is no need to rush our fences.
Schedule 1 does not treat members of the Low Pay Commission any differently from members of other statutory bodies. All such members are disqualified from the Westminster Parliament by being listed in part II of schedule 1 to the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. The list covers dozens of bodies. It starts with members of the Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances, and includes the council of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, and members of the Health and Safety Executive, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, and many others. The process is entirely normal.
There is also a short list of disqualified persons in paragraphs (a) to (e) of section 1(1) of the Disqualification Act, which disqualifies judges, civil servants, members of the armed forces, members of police forces and members of foreign legislatures from being Members of this House. That short list is in the Scotland Bill and the Government of Wales Bill.
242 Decisions about the long list of disqualified persons for the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales do not need to be taken now, although they will, of course, need to be taken later. That could be done in a number of ways. First, a decision will need to be taken, by means of orders made by the House and the other place, on disqualification prior to the first elections to those bodies. That will, no doubt, involve debate on the position of members of various statutory bodies, including the Low Pay Commission.
If the decision on the long list were not taken at Westminster prior to elections for the Scottish Parliament, that body, once elected, could make the decision itself by means of order-making powers under the Scotland Bill. In Wales, the position is different: the order-making power is retained by the Secretary of State. Whatever the situation, it will clearly make sense to have due regard to the long list of those already disqualified from Westminster.
The terms of appointment of members of the Low Pay Commission will be determined by the Secretary of State. It would be open to the Secretary of State to draft those terms of appointment in a way that excluded Members of any Parliament or assembly, regardless of whether they were automatically excluded by those bodies themselves.
Frankly, I regard all this as hypothetical and rather arcane. The important point is that we are committed to the independence and effectiveness of the Low Pay Commission. Despite the high regard that I have for hon. Members, I do not see their talents as being suited to the non-partisan and neutral approach that the commission needs to take in order to preserve its credibility.
My response to the amendment is that the matter will all be sorted out in good time. It does not make sense to pre-empt the process by amending the Bill in the way proposed. I have every confidence that sensible people will come to sensible conclusions on disqualification from the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales, both for members of the Low Pay Commission and for members of all other statutory bodies concerned. I therefore ask the House to reject the amendment if Opposition Members persist in putting it to a vote.
§ Mr. BoswellI found the Minister of State's reply disappointing and deeply implausible. Perhaps he has been working too long on the Bill, but there has been an unanticipated coalescence between the Minister and his officials. Suddenly, the mask of McCartney—he of the curve, which we discussed earlier—slipped, and we heard Sir Humphrey's voice speaking. We had the argument that Rome was not built in a day, and that it would all be sorted out in time—and probably it will be. It could have been sorted out tonight by our amendment, but it was not to be.
Purely as a gesture of good will to the Minister, because he has done his best to respond and has worked very hard in Committee and tonight, I advise my hon. Friends, exceptionally and against my better judgment, not to press the amendment to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.